Landmark, groundbreaking, classic-these adjectives barely do justice to the pioneering vision and lasting impact of The Feminine Mystique. Published in 1963, it gave a pitch-perfect description of "the problem that has no name": the insidious beliefs and institutions that undermined women's confidence in their intellectual capabilities and kept them in the home. Writing in a time when the average woman first married in her teens and 60 percent of women students dropped out of college to marry, Betty Friedan captured the frustrations and thwarted ambitions of a generation and showed women how they could reclaim their lives. Part social chronicle, part manifesto, The Feminine Mystique is filled with fascinating anecdotes and interviews as well as insights that continue to inspire. This 50th-anniversary edition features an afterword by best-selling author Anna Quindlen as well as a new introduction by Gail Collins.

"Life is made of moments, small pieces of silver amidst long stretches of tedium. It would be wonderful if they came to us unsummoned, but particularly in lives as busy as the ones most of us lead now, that won't happen. We have to teach ourselves now to live, really live...to love the journey, not the destination."

In this treasure of a book, Anna Quindlen, the bestselling novelist and columnist, reflects on what it takes to "get a life"—to live deeply every day and from your own unique self, rather than merely to exist through your days. "Knowledge of our own mortality is the greatest gift God ever gives us," Quindlen writes, "because unless you know the clock is ticking, it is so easy to waste our days, our lives." Her mother died when Quindlen was nineteen: "It was the dividing line between seeing the world in black and white, and in Technicolor. The lights came on for the darkest possible reason....I learned something enduring, in a very short period of time, about life. And that was that it was glorious, and that you had no business taking it for granted." But how to live from that perspective, to fully engage in our days? In A Short Guide to a Happy Life, Quindlen guides us with an understanding that comes from knowing how to see the view, the richness in living.

Now available again, this enchanting collection of 50 great poems continues to inspire with pleasure and wonder-a perfect gift. When a group of fifth-grade students asked fifty celebrities what their favorite poem was and why, the answers they received became a beautiful collection of some the world's most beloved poems, from classic to modern, that continues to offer inspiration, solace, wisdom, and amusement. Each poem is accompanied by the celebrity's brief letter explaining why they chose it and its resonance for them. Among the celebrities are Yo-Yo Ma, Joyce Carol Oates, Stephen Sondheim, Allen Ginsberg, Angela Lansbury, Kurt Vonnegut, Harolyn Blackwell, Isabella Rossellini, Bill Irwin, E. L. Doctorow, David Mamet, Elie Wiesel, Ally Sheedy, Ved Mehta, Tom Wolfe, David Dinkins, and Susan Minot. The poets include Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, Robert Frost, T. S. Eliot, Alice Walker, Mary Oliver, Frank O'Hara, Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams, W. B. Yeats. and John Keats-not to mention Noel Coward and a ditty by David Mamet himself! Anna Quindlen and verse from Pulitzer Prize-winner Yusef Komunyakaa provide a thoughtful introduction. Royalties from this collection have been donated to charity since its original publication.

For fans of Elizabeth Strout and Anne Tyler comes a brilliantly provocative novel from the Richard and Judy Book Club and Number One bestselling author Anna Quindlen. 'Mesmerizing. Quindlen makes her characters so richly alive, so believable, that it's impossible not to feel every doubt and dream they harbour . . . Overwhelmingly moving' New York Times Anna Quindlen follows her highly-praised novel Miller's Valley - 'reads like a companion to Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge', Elisabeth Egan - with a captivating novel about money, class and self-discovery set in the heart of New York where the tensions in a tight-knit neighbourhood - and a seemingly happy marriage - are exposed by an unexpected act of violence. There are days when Nora Nolan thinks that she and her husband, Charlie, lead a charmed life - except when there's a crisis at work, a leak in the roof at home or a problem with their twins at college. And why not? Nora has never stopped loving New York, and their street has become a safe harbour, a tranquil village amid the urban craziness. The residents watch one another's children grow up. They trade gossip and gripes, and they manoeuvre for the ultimate status symbol: a spot in the block's small parking lot. Then, into their secure, privileged midst comes an unexpected act of violence and their enviable neighbourhood turns into a potent symbol of a divided city. This is a novel of domesticity, of the jarring cacophony of city life and of daily routine and conversation and expectation being suddenly, awkwardly disrupted. It is about the change of dynamics wrought within a family when children leave home and the fading of love within an outwardly settled marriage. Utterly absorbing and impeccably observed, Alternate Side explores, too, what it means to be a mother, a wife and a woman at a moment of reckoning. 'Qualities and shades of love are this writer's strong suit, and she has the unusual talent for writing about them with so much truth and heart that one is carried away on a tidal wave of involvement and concern' Elizabeth Jane Howard 'I'm a big fan of US author Anna Quindlen's sharp writing. Her latest novel, Alternate Side, is a clear-eyed look at a long marriage, written with wit and warmth' Good Housekeeping 'A book about being a mother, a wife and a woman at a moment of reckoning, this is an acutely observed story' Stylist Books 'Middle age proves treacherous ground in this smart comedy of manners... Insightful, acerbic and pleasingly tinged with melancholy' Mail on Sunday

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR
"Elaborate and playful...Honest and deeply felt....Here is the Quindlen wit, the sharp eye for the details of class and manners, [and] the ardent reading of domestic lives."
THE NEW YORK TIMES
It is the 1960s, in suburban New York City. Maggie and her family, are in the thrall of her powerful grandfather Jack Scanlan. In the summer of her twelfth year, Maggie is despertately trying to master the object lessons her grandfather fills her head with. But there is too much going on to concentrate. Everything at home is in upheaval, her grandfather is changing, and Maggie is unsure if what she wants is worth having....

"From the Paperback edition.

"A panopticon of life in this decade, sure to be valuable to future social historians She touches on life, love, home, family, work, men, women, children and issues large and small."
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
The voice is Anna Quindlen's. But we know the hopes, dreams, fears, and wonder expressed in all her columns, for most of us share them. With her NEW YORK TIMES-based column, "LIFE IN THE 30s," Anna Quindlen valued to national attention, and this wonderful collection shows why.
As she proved in OBJECT LESSONS and THINKIN OUT LOUD, Anna Quindlen's views always fascinate.

Blessings, the bestselling novel by the author of Black and Blue, One True Thing, Object Lessons, and A Short Guide to a Happy Life, begins when, late at night, a teenage couple drives up to the estate owned by Lydia Blessing and leaves a box.

In this instant, the world of the estate called Blessings is changed forever. The story of Skip Cuddy, the Blessings caretaker, who finds a baby asleep in that box and decides he wants to keep her, and of matriarch Lydia Blessing, who, for her own reasons, decides to help him, Blessings explores how the secrets of the past affect decisions and lives in the present; what makes a person, a life, legitimate or illegitimate, and who decides; the unique resources people find in themselves and in a community. This is a powerful novel of love, redemption, and personal change by the Pulitzer Prize–winning writer about whom The Washington Post Book World said, “Quindlen knows that all the things we ever will be can be found in some forgotten fragment of family.”

"NEW YORK TIMES "BESTSELLER
A superb love story from Anna Quindlen, the #1" New York Times" bestselling author of" Rise and Shine, Blessings, "and" A Short Guide to a Happy Life"
"Still Life with Bread Crumbs" begins with an imagined gunshot and ends with a new tin roof. Between the two is a wry and knowing portrait of Rebecca Winter, a photographer whose work made her an unlikely heroine for many women. Her career is now descendent, her bank balance shaky, and she has fled the city for the middle of nowhere. There she discovers, in a tree stand with a roofer named Jim Bates, that what she sees through a camera lens is not all there is to life.
Brilliantly written, powerfully observed, "Still Life with Bread Crumbs" is a deeply moving and often very funny story of unexpected love, and a stunningly crafted journey into the life of a woman, her heart, her mind, her days, as she discovers that life is a story with many levels, a story that is longer and more exciting than she ever imagined.
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"There comes a moment in every novelist's career when she . . . ventures into new territory, breaking free into a marriage of tone and style, of plot and characterization, that's utterly her own. Anna Quindlen's marvelous romantic comedy of manners is just such a book. . . . Taken as a whole, Quindlen's writings represent a generous and moving interrogation of women's experience across the lines of class and race. . . . "Still Life with Bread Crumbs"] proves all the more moving because of its light, sophisticated humor. Quindlen's least overtly political novel, it packs perhaps the most serious punch. . . . Quindlen has delivered a novel that will have a staying power all its own."--"The New York Times Book Review"
" Anna] Quindlen's seventh novel offers the literary equivalent of comfort food. . . . She still has her finger firmly planted on the pulse of her generation."--NPR
" The protagonist's] photographs are celebrated for turning the 'minutiae of women's lives into unforgettable images, ' and Quindlen does the same here with her enveloping, sure-handed storytelling."--"People"
"Charming . . . a hot cup of tea of a story, smooth and comforting about the vulnerabilities of growing older . . . a pleasure."--"USA Today"
" A] wise tale about second chances, starting over, and going after what is most important in life."--Minneapolis "StarTribune"
"With spare, elegant prose, Quindlen] crafts a poignant glimpse into the inner life of an aging woman who discovers that reality contains much more color than her own celebrated black-and-white images."--"Library Journal"
"Quindlen has always excelled at capturing telling details in a story, and she does so again in this quiet, powerful novel, showing the charged emotions that teem beneath the surface of daily life."--"Publishers Weekly"
"Quindlen presents instantly recognizable characters who may be appealingly warm and nonthreatening, but that only serves to drive home her potent message that it's never too late to embrace life's second chances."--"Booklist"
"Profound . . . engaging."--"Kirkus Reviews"

In Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake, New York Times bestseller and winner of the Pulitzer Prize Anna Quindlen shares the events of her own life to illuminate our own. From childhood memories to manic motherhood to middle age, Quindlen tells life as she has lived it. She acknowledges the passing years, from the generational shrinking of underwear to facing the fact that her knees make 'this noise like Rice Krispies' when she exercises. Despite its downsides, she says, aging brings wisdom, and a perspective that makes life satisfying and even joyful. Honest, witty and moving, this irresistible memoir celebrates all our lives.

"New York Times" bestselling author Jennifer Finney Boylan returns with a remarkable memoir about gender and parenting that discusses how families are shaped and the difficulties and wonders of being human.
A father for six years, a mother for ten, and for a time in between, neither, or both, Jennifer Finney Boylan has seen parenthood from both sides of the gender divide. When her two children were young, Boylan came out as transgender, and as Jenny transitioned from a man to a woman and from a father to a mother, her family faced unique challenges and questions. In this thoughtful, tear-jerking, hilarious memoir, Jenny asks what it means to be a father, or a mother, and to what extent gender shades our experiences as parents.
Through both her own story and incredibly insightful interviews with others, including Richard Russo, Edward Albee, Ann Beattie, Augusten Burroughs, Susan Minot, Trey Ellis, Timothy Kreider, and more, Jenny examines relationships between fathers, mothers, and children; people's memories of the children they were and the parents they became; and the many different ways a family can be. With an Afterword by Anna Quindlen, "Stuck in the Middle with You" is a brilliant meditation on raising--and on being--a child.
Now with Extra Libris material, including a reader's guide and bonus content

Mary Beth Latham has built her life around her family, around caring for her three teenage children and preserving the rituals of their daily life. When one of her sons becomes depressed, Mary Beth focuses on him, only to be blindsided by a shocking act of violence. What happens afterward is a testament to the power of a woman's love and determination, and to the invisible lines of hope and healing that connect one human being to another. Ultimately, as rendered in Anna Quindlen's mesmerizing prose, "Every Last One" is a novel about facing every last one of the things we fear the most, about finding ways to navigate a road we never intended to travel.
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From Anna Quindlen, acclaimed author of "Blessings, Black and Blue, " and "One True Thing," a superb novel about two sisters, the true meaning of success, and the qualities in life that matter most.
It's an otherwise ordinary Monday when Meghan Fitzmaurice's perfect life hits a wall. A household name as the host of "Rise and Shine," the country's highest-rated morning talk show, Meghan cuts to a commercial break-but not before she mutters two forbidden words into her open mike.
In an instant, it's the end of an era, not only for Meghan, who is unaccustomed to dealing with adversity, but also for her younger sister, Bridget, a social worker in the Bronx who has always lived in Meghan's long shadow. The effect of Meghan's on-air truth telling reverberates through both their lives, affecting Meghan's son, husband, friends, and fans, as well as Bridget's perception of her sister, their complex childhood, and herself. What follows is a story about how, in very different ways, the Fitzmaurice women adapt, survive, and manage to bring the whole teeming world of New York to heel by dint of their smart mouths, quick wits, and the powerful connection between them that even the worst tragedy cannot shatter.

"From the Hardcover edition."